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Comment by marlor | Hacker News Reader

I was waiting for a conspiracy theory to be woven in there, and you didn’t disappoint.

Please share, what is the conspiracy theory you reference?

Did you know the term "conspiracy theory" was literally invented by the CIA to smear anyone who dared to question the official narrative about the JFK assassination?

There is ample evidence in recently released documents on the JFK assassination that Lee Harvey Oswald was working with the CIA before the assassination. [1][2]

Does anyone honestly believe that Oswald acted alone? Do you still believe that we invaded Iraq because they had WMD?

[1] https://theintercept.com/2022/12/19/lee-harvey-oswald-cia-ls...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/16/us/politics/biden-jfk-ass...

> The earliest known usage was by the American author Charles Astor Bristed, in a letter to the editor published in The New York Times on January 11, 1863. He used it to refer to claims that British aristocrats were intentionally weakening the United States during the American Civil War in order to advance their financial interests.

Those damn CIA time travelers.

Just because someone used a phrase earlier doesn’t mean todays usage traces back to then.

It is possible it was used in the 1860s and fell out of use and was popularized by the CIA at the time of JFKs assassination

I stand corrected on the origin of the term but I stand by the claim that it was weaponized by the CIA to counter those who questioned the official JFK assassination narrative.

Here is the 1967 CIA dispatch on the Warren Commission with details:

https://steemit.com/history/@thelastheretik/cia-coined-and-w...

Popularized.

That distinction hamstrings hundreds of otherwise valid conversations on the topic.

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